Randolph Mantooth, star of TV’s ‘Emergency!’, dead at age 80

Michael Ramsey Sun, July 12, 2026 at 5:18 AM UTC

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(NewsNation) — Actor Randolph Mantooth, who starred in the 1970s television series “Emergency!” as a firefighter paramedic, has died at the age of 80.

The California native, who also had a successful stint in daytime soap operas in the 1980s and 1990s, passed away in Ventura on July 9 following complications from pneumonia, a family member told The New York Times.

Tall, wiry and dark-haired, Mantooth portrayed Johnny Gage during six seasons of “Emergency!”, a trailblazing NBC drama that explored the medical crises California paramedics encountered in the field. Starring alongside Mantooth was Kevin Tighe as paramedic Roy DeSoto.

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The show, developed by “Dragnet” creator Jack Webb, ran from 1972 to 1977 and was followed by six TV movies.

In a 2013 interview with the Television Academy, Mantooth said he and Tighe initially trained with real paramedics so that they would look credible onscreen.

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EMERGENCY! — Season 2 — Pictured: (l-r) Kevin Tighe as paramedic Roy DeSoto and Randolph Mantooth as Johnny Gage. (Photo by Herb Ball/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)

“He’s a goofy, loose-cannon kind of guy,” Mantooth said of his character on the show. “If I fell off my roof cleaning the gutters, I’d want him to be there because he knows what he’s doing.”

After “Emergency!”, Mantooth continued working in television as a guest star on shows that included “Dallas” and “The Fall Guy.” In 1987, he began a decadelong association with the ABC soap opera “Loving,” which later became known as “The City.”

One of his co-stars on that show, Lisa LoCicero, paid tribute to Mantooth on Saturday,

“I adored this man, his humor, his talent, his ethic ….. his support in my first years on TV meant more than he could ever know, and he changed my life,” she said on Instagram.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”